More Prague

I’m still day dreaming aboutPrague mornings. Everything should start with pastel streets and sculptures (even if the ones on the Charles Bridge are actually just really old replicas) and wool coats. We don’t have an excess of pretty winter wear in SC, and I’d rather not make any other compasrisons between Prague and the faux-rural mostly suburban city I live in.
Let’s just say I was happy. Extremely. And just thinking about my camera roll has me in Liz-Travel-Planning-Mode.

My top three favorites about Praha:

1. The František Kupka paintings in the The Veletržní Palace (they even have a Pinterest!) collection of modern art. That entire building was a treat. My favorite pieces were mostly depressing Czech works in deep, dark palettes and then a roundup of French paintings. Notably, Chagall’s “Cirkus”. The museum was empty. Majorly. Which was a beautiful experience. Standing in front of Gustav Klimt’s “Lady with a Muff” in a colossal space by myself was ten times better than shuffling through bodies on my tip-toes and squinting at DaVinci’s you know who in the Louvre. OH MY GOD. This paragraph must end now. Point being: Go to this gallery in Prague 7. Look at Kupka’s paintings.

2. Strolling along the Vltava River. A thing I didn’t know about myself until I started thinking critically about my travels is that I need to be near water. I just do. Not in the way that I’m jet-setting for waterfalls or oceans, just in the way that water grounds me. Realigns something. And if it’s nearby, I’ll go to it. My favorite things have been that element in various places. Oban’s port. Berenx’s proximity to the Gave du Pau (ah, the bank near Gare d’Ortez!) and the most beautiful water I’ve actually ever seen, Biarritz Plage. London’s rain. This magical place in Sintra. Minnesota’s Mississippi. And obviously, the peninsula that is Charleston, the city I’ll never stop missing. Again, another paragraph that needs to end. Point being: Prague has a beautiful river. With islands with trees. With swans. That. There. All of it.

3. Czech cuisine. This is sort of inaccurate. I didn’t loveCzech food, but I loved the sentiment. Which sounds extremely silly. My reasoning: the dishes were inventive and fun (whipped cream? With cranberries? On meat?) and comforting. Comforting in the way that heavy food is comforting and then it immediately isn’t. I would not be able to eat Czech dumplings or gravy or roasted duck for any long duration of time, but for a brief vacation I felt totally present when I was eating sweet red cabbage and beef goulash. Maybe I was just hungry.